Sudden Death in New York City

Sylvia Pantaleo is an assistant professor of education specializing in
children’s literature at Queen’s University. She is the co-author of
Learning with Literature in the Canadian Elementary Classroom.

The Screech Owls travel to New York City to participate in a hockey
tournament. As long as they “behave themselves,” the team can attend
the New Year’s Eve festivities in Times Square. Nish wants to get his
name in the Guinness Book of World Records and decides that
“mooning” the one billion people viewing the broadcast of the Times
Square celebrations is the means to gain his fame. Nish shares his
scheme with “Big,” an entrepreneur who sells $5 Oakley sunglasses
and fake Rolex watches on the streets of New York.

The technological knowledge and expertise of Data and Fahd assist Nish
in filming his posterior and in planning the interruption of the New
Year’s transmission. Two men are caught trying to break into Fahd and
Data’s room, and the description of one of the suspects sounds like
Big. When the boys do a test run of the file of Nish’s posterior, they
discover that the file has been replaced.

The hockey subplot of the novel plays more of a minor role in the
unfolding narrative than in previous books. The team wins the
tournament, and Sarah and Sam play a joke on Nish that nearly results in
him fulfilling his “mooning” scheme. The mystery element in Sudden
Death in New York is not as engaging as that in other books in the
series. Aspects of the plot are unrealistic (e.g., 12-year-old children
wandering the streets of New York City unsupervised) and somewhat
contrived (e.g., the sudden-death shootout after the final game in the
tournament). Nish’s scheme to get his name in the Guinness Book of
World Records becomes tiresome very quickly. Not a first-choice
purchase.